MICROBYTE: THREE TERMS?

Until the 22nd Amendment was added to the Constitution on February 27th, 1951, putting a legal limit to a tradition, there was no legal limit on how many terms a President could serve.

The idea of two terms was a tradition set by George Washington when he shocked the old world by deciding not to run for a third term. Washington had shocked the old world before. The first time was when he resigned his military commission and retired to private life rather than seizing the opportunity to become a king or dictator for life, which many Americans would have welcomed. When George III was told by the American artist, Benjamin West, that Washington had stepped down, the King said, “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”

Some historians have written that the 64-year-old Washington’s decision was personal as well as political. After decades of service, they claimed, he was careworn, weary, and frustrated by his political enemies–one of whom was the ever-ambitious Thomas Jefferson, who helped form the first opposition party, the Democratic-Republican Party.

Other historians have said that Washington had always intended to step down once he felt that the toddler country he helped found was safe and on solid footing.

The two-term tradition was retired by Franklin Roosevelt, who, as a wartime President, was elected four times, but died in the early part of his fourth. He remains the only president to have served more than twice.

MICROBYTE: CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS

The great irony of our constitution is that the Third and arguably the most important of our three “Equal” Branches of government, the Judicial Branch, is left without the power to enforce its decisions.

It operates on faith, faith that the other two branches (and We The People) will stick to our promise, although unwritten, to abide by its decisions. A bit like a referee in a basketball game.

If that faith is broken, we have a Constitutional Crisis on our hands. Have we had one before? Actually, there’s no definitive count. And the term itself is up for debate. As you may imagine, legal scholars and learned historians disagree on which events qualify.

There is a camp that contends that fist fights in government are within the normal course of political events. There is no debate, however, that the Civil War was the result of the inability to resolve Constitutional issues. Watergate would have qualified had Richard Nixon opted to defy a court order to serve up the infamous tapes. Is the current president determined to push the bounds? What are the consequences when a pardonable high government official breaks that faith, defies a specific Supreme Court order? Uncertain. No pun intended, the jury is still out.

What could happen is what all of Washington is freaking out about: a Constitutional Crisis that threatens the stability, legitimacy, viability, and even the very existence of the government itself. There is no debate over whether a Constitutional Crisis would erode the Rule of Law, cause the loss of political legitimacy, and administrative paralysis. No doubt that a Constitutional Crisis could result in civil unrest and violence, ending in regime change or even autocracy. 

😂 “There’s your constitutional crisis. It’s a failure of checks and balances. Court says ‘do it,’ he won’t do it. These are court orders, not court suggestions, The Supreme Court has to have more power than the bathroom sign that says ‘employees must wash hands.” Stephen Colbert

📖 In On Freedom, historian Timothy Snyder challenges the common idea that freedom means simply being left alone. Instead, he argues that true freedom is collective—the power to shape our future together through shared responsibility, strong institutions, and mutual trust. Drawing on history, philosophy, and personal insight, Snyder offers a bold reimagining of freedom as the foundation for a thriving, democratic society.. (Timothy Snyder, Yale historian and N.YT. best seller.) Get yours here As an Amazon Associate, we earn commission from qualifying purchases.